BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, February 27, 2020 (Press Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister) – At the Tuesday, February 25 town hall meeting at the McKnight Community Center, Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris reminded citizens and residents of the significance of the iconic and powerful speech delivered by Marcus Garvey in 1937, in which he urged all Kittitians and Nevisians to “Make St. Kitts your Garden of Eden. If you don’t do it then other men will do it for you…”
“Marcus Garvey envisioned a St. Kitts and Nevis that was beautiful, not just on the outside, but beautiful on the inside with people rimming with love, decency, kindness and compassion. That was what he was talking about in 1937. We come many years after for a Team Unity Government to start the good work on this Garden of Eden.”
Dr. Harris said over the last five years, his Team Unity-led administration has done much to build and protect the “Garden of Eden.” St. Kitts and Nevis has the best standing among the independent states of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio. The Federation achieved the 60 percent debt-to-GDP ratio milestone more than 12 years ahead of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union’s target date of 2030.
Additionally, the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2019 ranked the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis thirtieth out of 126 countries.
Prime Minister Harris added, “Each time I go back to the archive to read the powerful lyrics of Marcus Garvey, I feel like God intervened in St. Kitts and Nevis in February 16, 2015, to give us the opportunity to appreciate our Garden of Eden and we will all build it together and protect it for the generation that will come after.”
It was under the Team Unity administration that a new sense of peace and security was ushered in across the Federation. The Peace Initiative, which commenced in March 2019, has resulted in unprecedented reductions in major crimes, particularly gang-related homicides, in St. Kitts and Nevis.
“You knew that the country needed a change—a change in the way things were being done, a change in the order of victimization, a change in unadulterated corruption by the regime that was and you delivered,” Prime Minister Harris said, noting that the Team Unity administration is “working hard to preserve this new Garden of Eden that we are building.”
